Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2019
Volume 64, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2019; Denver, Colorado
Session R12: Mini-Symposium: Constraining the Neutrino-nucleus Interaction for Neutrino Oscillations II |
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Sponsoring Units: DNP DPF Chair: Alex Himmel, Fermilab Room: Sheraton Plaza Court 1 |
Monday, April 15, 2019 1:30PM - 1:42PM |
R12.00001: The Current Challenges in Understanding the Shallow- and Deep Inelastic Regimes in Neutrino Nucleus Scattering Jorge G Morfin One of the most poorly studied kinematic regions in neutrino nucleus scattering is the transition region from the Delta resonance production to DIS - often called shallow-inelastic scattering. It is also the non-perturbative/perturbative QCD transition region that introduces many non-perturbative QCD effects. Even within the DIS regime, there are also concerns from the comparison of nuclear PDFs between nu-A and e/mu-A scattering that have to be addressed. This talk will summarize this situation. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 1:42PM - 1:54PM |
R12.00002: Measuring Charged Current Muon Neutrino Cross Sections in the MINERvA Experiment Amy N Filkins In an era of precision neutrino oscillation experiments using improved technology that generate large statistical samples, it is important to understand the probabilities of neutrino interactions on nuclei over a large volume of kinematic phase space. The MINERvA experiment, which utilizes the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab, measures cross sections across multiple materials ranging from helium to lead, and is able to compare results to imperfect models of these neutrino interactions. I will present a double differential cross section measurement of charged current muon-neutrino interactions in hydrocarbon, in variables of the longitudinal and transverse momenta of the muon, at a neutrino energy of 〈3.5 GeV〉 with 3.34E20 protons on target. This result is advantageous for comparisons with theorists since it is done in well-defined easily measurable variables, and is able to highlight areas in which there are model deficiencies. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 1:54PM - 2:06PM |
R12.00003: Combined on/off-axis inclusive charged current cross-section measurement on carbon in the T2K near detector complex Andrew B Cudd The T2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment has a diverse program of neutrino-interaction cross-section measurements using its on-axis and off-axis near detectors. The two near detectors sample different neutrino energy spectra; an analysis using both detectors is able to better probe the energy dependence of few-GeV neutrino interactions than either detector can independently. This talk describes a simultaneous cross-section measurement on scintillator (CH) target using both near detectors. Neutrino detectors measure total rate, which is a convolution of flux and cross section effects. Because both detectors are exposed to neutrinos from the same beamline, many uncertainties in the neutrino flux prediction will be correlated. This fact combined with the different neutrino energy spectra seen in each detector will improve the sensitivity to the flux and cross-section degeneracy. This analysis will be the first cross-section measurement in T2K to use samples from multiple detectors in the same beamline. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 2:06PM - 2:18PM |
R12.00004: $\nu_\mu$ Charged-Current Inclusive Cross-Section Measurement in the NOvA Near Detector Shih-Kai Lin The NOvA (NuMI Off-axis $\nu_e$ Appearance) experiment is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment hosted by Fermilab. NOvA uses two functionally-identical detectors 14 mrad off-axis from the beamline, each of which is a segmented tracking calorimeter. A near detector underground at Fermilab is used not only for observing the unoscillated neutrino spectra, but also for carrying out cross-section measurements owing to the high rate of neutrino interactions in its highly active volume. Modeling charged-current interactions is of great importance since they are the signal channels for the oscillation measurements, yet current models have large uncertainties. In this talk, I present the details and results of the double-differential, systematics-limited $\nu_\mu$ charged-current cross-section measurement using data from the NOvA near detector. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 2:18PM - 2:30PM |
R12.00005: Studying Nuclear Effects in the MicroBooNE Detector Samantha R. Sword-Fehlberg The neutrino charged current (CC) cross section is critical for understanding neutrino oscillations as the flavor of a neutrino can only be determined by its CC interaction. As future generations of neutrino detectors will use argon as a target nucleus, it’s important to understand the influence that nuclear effects have on neutrino-nucleon cross sections. The MicroBooNE collaboration has developed a CC inclusive selection which uses a number of advanced reconstruction algorithms and cosmic rejection tools. The same selection can be used with particle identification (PID) techniques to study nuclear effects associated with exclusive CC channels, such as short-range nucleon-nucleon correlations. In MicroBooNE, a CC interaction with a correlated nucleon would lead to a 1 muon, 2 proton topology (CC2p). It is crucial that the PID techniques used are efficient in identifying CC2p signals from background. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) have shown great promise in their ability to distinguish objects in an image from a noisy background. We present here our work in further constraining the CC inclusive selection and the development of a CNN for CC2p event identification. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 2:30PM - 2:42PM |
R12.00006: Constraining Electron Neutrino Systematic Uncertainties with Muon Neutrino Events in MicroBooNE Lauren E. Yates MicroBooNE is a neutrino experiment based at Fermilab that utilizes a liquid argon time projection chamber located on-axis in the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB). One of the experiment’s main goals is a search for the excess of electron-neutrino-like events seen by the MiniBooNE experiment, located near MicroBooNE in the BNB. I will describe the status of our deep-learning-based search for low-energy electron neutrino interactions within the MicroBooNE detector and the muon neutrino interactions by which we will constrain them. In particular, I will present the muon neutrino event selection, the systematic uncertainties associated with neutrino-argon interactions, and the technique we plan to use for constraining systematic uncertainties on electron neutrino scattering on argon using muon neutrino data. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 2:42PM - 2:54PM |
R12.00007: MicroBooNE's Search for a Photon-like Low Energy Excess Kathryn Sutton MicroBooNE is Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) which has been taking neutrino data at Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beamline (BNB) since October 2015. One of its primary goals is to investigate the "Low Energy Excess" of neutrino events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment, for which one candidate interpretation is neutrino neutral current (NC) resonant Delta baryon production with subsequent radiative decay. This is a standard model source of low energy single-photon events that has never been observed but if found to have a high rate could be a sizable contribution to the "Low Energy Excess". In MicroBooNE it would be identified with an event signature of one detached photon shower and some number of proton tracks. This talk will describe the analysis developed to search for NC Delta radiative events in MicroBooNE, consisting of a Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) based event selection with enhanced background reduction using a Semantic Segmentation Network (SSNet) to target the dominant NC π0 background. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 2:54PM - 3:06PM |
R12.00008: Constraining the Neutral Current π0 Background for MicroBooNE's Single-Photon Search Andrew J Mogan Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) are a rising technology in the field of experimental neutrino physics due to their exceptional calorimetric and position resolution capabilities. In particular, their ability to distinguish electrons from photons is crucial for current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. The MicroBooNE experiment is utilizing LArTPC technology to investigate the MiniBooNE low-energy excess, which could be either electron-like or photon-like in nature. On the photon-like side, MicroBooNE is searching for single-photon events, the most common of which is the neutral current (NC) Δ radiative decay. However, this search is marred by the significantly more common NC π0 decay mode of the Δ. In this talk, I present my work in constraining this NC π0 background. Using a modified version of the single-photon analysis framework, we instead select two-photon events which are characteristic of the NC π0 topology. The selected sample is then used as a sideband to constrain the systematic uncertainty on the NC Δ radiative decay measurement. |
Monday, April 15, 2019 3:06PM - 3:18PM |
R12.00009: Systematic Studies in the Single Photon Analysis of the MicroBooNE Experiment Gray Langley Yarbrough The MicroBooNE detector was built with the investigation of the “low energy excess” (LEE) of electron neutrino and antineutrino charged current quasi-elastic events observed in the MiniBooNE experiment as one of its primary physics goals. One of the possible interpretations of the MiniBooNE LEE is that it is made up of neutrino-induced single-photon events. An analysis effort is underway at MicroBooNE to test this hypothesis via study of neutral current resonant delta production with subsequent radiative decay. This talk will cover the studies underway to fully understand the systematic uncertainties of this single photon analysis, including re-weighting Monte Carlo events to estimate the effect of many flux and cross-section uncertainties and the testing of the impact of detector simulation on the analysis results. |
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